


Spicy Space Spy

by snowley



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: During War, Fluff, M/M, Outer Space, Pre-War, Star-crossed, Stupid Spies, also, cute bots, may contain small amounts of communist propaganda
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22786252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowley/pseuds/snowley
Summary: The war destroyed many things, including many relationships. But if you're lucky, the fate may throw you back in the arms of your lover in the most unexpected way.Inspired by IDW's Valentine's Special.
Relationships: Blast Off/Cosmos (Transformers)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 30





	1. The number one song in Hell

Cosmos looked at his weak reflection in the polished surface of MacCaddam’s Oils House’s back wall once again, the tenth time in the last 30 seconds. It’s prefect, he told himself. You look prefect. Okay, that’s a huge exaggeration, not perfect, but okay. More than okay. You look handsome. You went to the mech-wash and took the full program, with hot wax polishing. Best, imported, organic wax. Cosmos looked his reflection in the visor. _Don’t be petty._

The wax, the polish, that’s not important. The words. He spoke them under his breath and they sounded like an unarticulated sigh. Oh no.

Something pinged in his audials and he almost had a spark attack. It was his comm, set to maximum volume so he wouldn’t miss any incoming calls. He turned it down and read the message on the mini-screen on his wrist.

>I’m @ the bar… Where are you? What do you want to drink? x

Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Cosmos stared at the three dots.

>I’m almost at the door. Please don’t be mad I’m late! Order the Triplex for me, thanks x

He hesitated and deleted the middle sentence. Blast Off told him so many times to not be sorry for everything…

One last quick glance and he moved, trying to hide his stiffness with nonchalance. Entering the MacCaddam’s, he gave the room a quick scan and found Blast Off sitting alone at the table in the back, two glasses on Egnex at the table already. He squeezed his giant frame between a bunch of frowning bots. He smiled weakly at Blast Off and sat down.

“So clumsy on land, so agile in the air.” – Blast Off greeted him with a pat on the shoulder.

Cosmos giggled nervously. Blast Off sat leaning on the table, has face mask off. They haven’t seen each other in more than twenty cycles, and Cosmos felt so incredible enchanted by the bot before him. Blast Off seemed radiant, MacCaddam’s lights caught in the bends of his armour, visor glistening with thousand small reflections. He felt like he could just sit there in awe for the rest of his life. Then his eyes wandered down from Blast Off’s charming smile and stopped on his chest. There was something new there. Oh…

Blast Off caught his gaze and touched the emblem on his left breastplate.

“Yeah. That…” – Blast Off covered the emblem with his hand, like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to wear it.

“You’re a Decepticon.”

“Yeah. Yes. For some time now. I thought I’d tell you when we see each other optic to optic. Didn’t want to… you know. Someone read our comms.”

“Som… but you wear the badge. It’s not like it’s a secret.”

Blast Off sighed. “Things changed. It’s… important.” He looked at Cosmos apologetically. “You seem angry.”

Cosmos adjusted himself on the chair. This is not what he wanted to talk about, but it needs to wait.

“I’m not angry. I’m confused. I didn’t know you were into politics.”

“Well, that’s not exactly how I imagined our date after so much time, but… Cosmos” Blast Off grabbed his hand. “This is not politics, this is our life. Mine and yours.”

“Mine and yours…” Cosmos looked at their hands, overwhelmed by a sudden wave of sadness. 

“No…” Blast Off stared at him until Cosmos finally looked up. “Life of every worker. Cosmos, look at us. Because of our assignments we can see each other what, ten, twenty times a megacycle? Wouldn’t you want to change that?”

“Of course I would.”

“But you can’t. You don’t have time. And you never will. They will never give it to you. We…” Blast Off squeezed Cosmos’s hand harder. “All of us, our whole squad, even Onslaught, we all enlisted, we’re all Decepticons now. The higher class… where would they be without us? They say we’re not inventors, artists, senators. But where would an inventor be without an Energon transport delivered to his door? A scientist lost in space forever, without a rescuer? A senator without his exotic fuel pumped by oil workers? Where would every single Cybertronian be? Who do you think does more, deserves more? We work, getting scraps. We’re less than drones. Because drones are not sentient, they don’t know they’re used. We know. And we do nothing about it.”

Cosmos stared at Blast Off in a complete loss for words. Blast Off waited, his lips a thin line. Finally, Cosmos spoke.

“Gears is not a scientist.”

“What?”

“You… y-you said something about a rescue party saving a scientist. You were referring to me and Gears, right? Gears is not a scientist. I don’t know what he does. But he’s not a scientist.”

“That… What? That was just an example. It’s irrelevant. I want to know what you think.”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. You’re right, we are needed and don’t get much from it, but… The Decepticons, there’s something… brutal about them. I don’t know.”

Blast Off released his hands and sighed again. “I knew you wouldn’t fight. You don’t have to. I’ll fight for you.”

Cosmos didn’t answer. He grabbed his untouched drink and took a big sip. “Can we just get hammered now?”

“Oh yes.” Blast Off smiled, clearly relieved. It must’ve been a difficult conversation for him too, Cosmos thought. Blast Off wasn’t a type of bot that would speak so openly and passionately about anything. Cosmos felt a jab of dread. Protests on the street. Gossips about Autobot brutality. Newsfeed predicting war. And Blast Off so eager to be active part in all of this. Cosmos gulped his drink whole and felt a little dizzy.

“Wait-“ Cosmos started, but what would he actually say? That’s he’s scared? What, maybe that they should run away? Ridiculous. Stupid, stupid idea.

“Hm?” Blast Off’s smile faded. “What? Tell me. Don’t clam up. You know you can tell me anything.”

“I…” Cosmos took a big air intake. “I’m very worried about you. What if this turns serious? Like an _actual_ fight?”

“Like I said. I will fight. For your sake. And for mine. Don’t cry, please.”

Cosmos felt the panic raising up in him, up, up to his optics. His vision blurred and then disappeared completely, his visor buried into Blast Off’s chest, hot plasma spilling right onto the Decepticon badge. Blast Off held him tightly until he could gather himself. Still in Blast Off’s arms, enveloped by his warmth, he felt his spark weighing on him like a boulder.

“Sorry, that’s a little bit too much to take for me all at once. I can’t forbid you to fight if you believe in it so much.”

“Don’t be sorry. That’s very nice you care for me so much.” Blast Off’s voice was shaking, so he took a sharp air intake and continued. “There doesn’t have to be a fight. Maybe a skirmish. Oh, how about a gladiator brawl? Megatron versus Sentinel, Main Iaconian Arena.”

Cosmos laughed and buried himself deeper into Blast Off’s arms. In the corner of an optic he could see a couple of bots glancing at him curiously, but he didn’t mind. “I’d like to see that.”

“Sure. Waiter! Another round of the same!” Blast Off yelled at a service drone passing by.

The evening went by, turning into a night, one of short Cybertronian nights, where the lights of the city faded all the stars. Cosmos, sick of city’s clamour, felt like leaving the atmosphere to see the bed of flickering, white stars all around him again, but he and Blast Off were way too drunk to take flight and not be noticed by Autobot militia. They wobbled back to their cheap motel, the tiredness overtaking them slowly.

“You noticed we basically live in our workplace so if we wanna meet we need to rent a room.” Cosmos pointed. “That really, really sucks aft!”

“Told you.” Blast Off muttered while trying to find a keycard to their room in his subspace. After a long while they finally got in.

“Ach frag, I need to leave tomorrow at dawn. Sorry, gotta sleep.” Cosmos located a berth and fell on it, face first. Blast Off just grunted and lied next to him. They both instantly went into dreamless, drunk recharge. In what seemed like an instant, Cosmos’s alarm rang. He switched it off, turned to Blast Off sleeping on his side, back to him and wrapped his arm around him.

“I wanted to ask you yesterday, but there wasn’t a right moment. Do you want to be my Conjunx?” Cosmos whispered into his audial.

Blast Off sighed and stirred, pressing his back closer to Cosmos. Cosmos got up and petted the rim of Blast Off’s wings as a goodbye.

“See you around.” He waved at the unconscious bot and left.


	2. The small blind and the big blind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where the plot arrives...

“I don’t understand why was I called here.” Blast Off stood in the middle of a small, dim room, a few steps from the desk where Starscream sat. He looked around with pretended curiosity, just to avoid the commander’s piercing, red optics. The impromptu office was an old file archive, with stacks of long-forgotten tablets shoved unceremoniously to the walls. Hearing about Starscream’s arrival Hun-Grr, the ship’s commanding officer, had to make do, Blast Off mused, marveling at a halfway-eaten data logger.

“The prison escape.” – said Starscream matter-of-factly.

“Yes, there was one recently. But I don’t understand why are you asking me and not, you know, Hun-Grr.” – scoffed Blast Off.

Starscream rolled his optics and took a small sip from a cup of Energon on the desk. “I will talk to him, don’t worry. Perhaps you want to sit, Blast Off? You look awfully stiff. Something to drink?”

“No, thank you.” Blast Off gave a thin smile under his battle mask and sat on a short stool on the opposite side of the desk. So short, in fact, that he almost had to kneel, finding no spare room for his legs. Only thanks to his big frame, his head was still above the countertop. He looked up cautiously at Starscream. The red-and-white bot didn’t seem to be bothered by Blast Off’s predicament, calmly lightning up a data log that lied on the desk in front of him and turning on his spectacles to get a better look. 

“Twelve cycles ago, the Excavator, your ship, encountered and intercepted an Autobot scout. You threw him to the brig, blah, blah, blah… Two cycles ago, you had a security breach and the Autobot have escaped.” Starscream looked up from the report. “That’s all very… brief.” The commander paused, pressing for an elaboration.

“Well, it’s not like this doesn’t happen often. – Balst Off paused, realizing how derogatory this sounds. – “Uh, I mean, err, it happens from time to time. Rarely. Almost never. But there’s not much to write about, right? He just bailed, it happens. Very, _very_ rarely, like I mentioned-” Blast Off noticed he was rambling, so he clutched his jaw pistons shut. 

“Quite the contrary.” Starscream rested his chin on his hand and narrowed his optics like a turbofox just before it jumps on its prey. “It’s… a little bit too frequent, I admit, but that’s a topic for another time and place, for an Autobot to escape our imprisoning. That’s not the source of my concern by itself, but the _circumstances_ of it. You see, in most cases, an Autobot running off is a result of a battle, either a common clash or a rescue party. Well, there are also some Autobots who are hard to contain, so they slip off or rip out their way out. That’s all condemnable, but understandable. In this case, there was no fight, so this Autobot had to be very clever to break free, hadn’t he? Is he clever, Blast Off?” 

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Or maybe the security was lackluster?”

“Uhh, no, I don’t think so.” _– I was security_ Blast Off thought.

“What was his name?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember? Is your data bank corrupted?”

“I didn’t really care. That was just some random bot.”

“But you sure chatted a lot with him. There’s footage from the security system. It wasn’t that easy to collect - it was corrupted, but I managed to salvage visuals. I’ll advise Hun-Grr to fix it later.” Starscream smiled. “Sadly, to sound is gone. So what did you talk about with this random Autobot?” - Blast Off froze while Starscream gave him a small pause to respond and then continued. “It almost seem like you two know each other very well. And then you went to the power supply room, turned off all security and let him out.”

“No-!” Blast Off felt like his spark was leaving his body through his throat.

“Shhh. Don’t try to bluff now. I know everything.” Starscream’s smile widened. “And I have to congratulate you, Blast Off. Bravo.”

Blast Off cowered, confused by Starscream’s calm and seemingly sincere tone. Meanwhile the seeker stood up and started pacing the room back and forth with his palms joined, as if deep in thought.

“Let me tell you what I think had happened, and then you can confirm or deny it. You knew this Autobot, what was his name? Cosmos. You knew him well before war. You certainly were aware he used to work as a security on Luna 1, so he’s adjusted to long, deep-space missions. What is he doing here, in the middle of nowhere, alone? You thought. Why, he’s certainly on some important mission that requires stealth. It would be very profitable for a Decepticon cause, and in extension, to you, to figure out what sort of mission that was. So you tried to exploit some sentiment he might still have towards you and get the information out of him. I think it wasn’t enough to persuade him. Then Trepan came, but you figured out a nemnosurgeon wouldn’t do much in this situation – spied have many failsafes, a total memory wipeout included, to not get their knowledge revealed. So you manufactured his breakout – making yourself his ally. There are three possibilities now: first, the Autobots will send Cosmos again to accomplish his mission. That way you can find a way to contact him again, this time not as a captor, but as a friend. He might slip up what’s he’s doing. Am I right?”

Blast Off stared at Starscream. That monologue took him to a brink of despair and back. Good thing we was wearing his mask, because he listened with his jaw dropped. He almost felt like electrocuted and noticed he stopped taking air in. “H-ha ha ha.” That laugh was so fake he just wanted to evaporate on spot.

“Aha! I knew it! I figured it out, you sly beast! This bot, he had feelings for you, right? So if you let him go, he might think there’s still something between you and meet again. And when you meet, you can probe here and there, get some intel for us! Brilliant! I didn’t know you had it in you, Blast Off! But, excuse me for being so frank, you made a colossal mistake.” Starscream still had him on the hook, slowly reeling in his prey. “I told you there are three possibilities. Now. Number two is that Autobots, aware that we’re scanning the sector, will abandon their mission. Number three, the Autobots continue the mission but send someone else. Either way, it’d be a bummer.”

“Um… yeah…”

“Oh, you wanted to be clever, but you overdid it. That’s quite dangerous, you know. Makes it look like you just freed him because you like him. But, Blast Off, don’t fret, now you have me. I will make sure it all goes well.” Starscream stood behind him and put his hands on his shoulders, pressing him down hard. Starscream leaned down and whispered into his audial: “Remember, I’m not an idiot.”

“Yeah...”

Meanwhile, not so far away distance-wise, Blast Off’s situation was mirroring itself. The setting moved from a cramped locker to a tidy, proper office and the cast changed, but they went through similar motions, a new interpretation of the same scene.

“I want to ask about our report.” – Prowl’s demeanor was nothing like Starscream’s; no venomous charm, no sly smiles. Just a serious face that seemed to always be disappointed in you.

“I thought it was quite comprehensive.” - Cosmos tried to remain calm, at the same time making a list of every true and imaginary crime he had ever committed.

“Quite. Up until the point you get out of prison.”

“Well, the guard opened the door, I ran. I even gave you a layout of the brig.” – Cosmos went through his report in his head, once again trying to figure out how much information is too much or not enough.

“Yes, but why did he open the cell? Why wasn’t there any guards?”

“Well, um, I’ve heard there was a… drill that day!”

“You heard from whom?” – asked Prowl. Cosmos was wondering if he deliberately omitted pointing the fact that he didn’t answer the previous question.

“A guard passing by.”

“That was before your escape or after?”

“Before! It had to be before. I mean, it was.”

“And there was no guards on your path. And you opened the door and left. Yes?”

“Yes. I was careful.”

“None.” – Prowl emphasized.

“No. I mean, maybe. But they haven’t seen me.” – _I am done. That’s it_. Cosmos felt like passing out.

“Don’t be stressed, this is not a quiz. This is you telling me a true story.” – said Prowl. 

Cosmos was taken aback by the level of this sarcasm. But there was no point in hiding. The ruse was up.

“Okay, someone helped me!”

“Why?” – asked Prowl with the same, calm and factual tone.

“Because… we were friends. Blast Off, the guard, and I… we were familiar once.”

“Okay, Cosmos, now listen to me. You will continue your mission in this sector. Starscream’s probably already aware that we know something. You will keep in touch with Blast Off and try to get some information from him. Starscream is not stupid, but he loves to boast. He may slip up something important.”

“Starscream?”

“He just came here.” Stated Prowl. Cosmos got an uneasy feeling that he’s in the center of events that he knows nothing about and that always meant big trouble. Deadly trouble. 

“So you want me to do what now? Seduce Blast Off?”

Prowl looked him in the optic. “Whatever you’ll find necessary. I’m not pushing you, of course. The main mission is to find out what the Deceptiocons are doing, not play games with them.”

“Sure.” – Cosmos sighed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was supposed to be much longer, but I cut it in two for various reasons. Anyway, chapter 3 will revisit the events in the prison, so be ready for angst. 
> 
> PS I love writing Screamer.

**Author's Note:**

> Can you feel the drama creeping in?


End file.
